


Hands

by Kass



Series: Firefly fanworks [5]
Category: Firefly
Genre: Gen, Poetry, Sestina, halfamoon09
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-06
Updated: 2009-02-06
Packaged: 2017-10-02 05:22:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kass/pseuds/Kass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kaylee's always been good with her hands.<br/>From the first time she touched an engine<br/>she knew how to make it run true...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hands

**Author's Note:**

> A Kaylee sestina written for halfamoon 09.

Kaylee's always been good with her hands.  
From the first time she touched an engine  
she knew how to make it run true.  
She used to picture life among the stars,  
but not this experience of being held,  
this cobbled-together family.

Weren't nothing wrong with her own family:  
just, on that dusty rock, nothing for her hands  
to grip, and when she held  
the fan belt of her first engine  
her mama looked sadly up at the stars  
and told her dreams ought to come true.

Serenity's a good ship, it's true  
though Kaylee never figured to find family  
out there in the black among the stars.  
She just wanted to use her hands,  
learn the ways of this sweet engine  
and help the ship feel cradled, held

by someone who knew she mattered. Held  
together with wire she still flew true.  
Once Inara said Kaylee was the engine  
(she blushed to think it) of their family,  
the one who made connections, hands  
to hearts and hearts to the bright stars.

Kaylee used to imagine the cold stars,  
the vast blackness, her heart held  
in the palms of someone's capable hands.  
She never figured on the stories being true  
but it turns out the way to make a family  
is to let love be your engine

and fly where you didn't think your engine  
could go: the outer rim, the furthest stars  
of sorrow and desire. And if your family  
was real, the knots that held  
would keep you together, bonds as true  
as the calluses on Kaylee's smudged hands.

The engine room is where Kaylee feels held.  
Out here in the stars, dreams do come true:  
she builds family with her own strong hands.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Hands (podfic)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1057106) by [susan_voight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/susan_voight/pseuds/susan_voight)




End file.
